On my twentieth birthday I cried, knowing I couldn’t use the “stupid teenager” excuse anymore. On my twenty-second last November, I comforted myself that I was still a college student. On the Monday before graduation this spring, I sat in the back of a CUPD squad car, hoping the officer would believe that my naked Senior Week shenanigan was motivated by anxiety about the future.
Cornell’s tradition of tomfoolery is a rich one, dating back to Willard Straight 1901, a mischievous architecture student famous for founding Dragon Day, marrying rich, and donating a sizeable sum to the University—but barring its use for academic purposes.
In honor of this legacy, I stood shivering behind a tree with a group of female friends, wearing only a summer dress, winter hat, and running shoes. We nervously scanned Libe Slope, crowded with students watching the latest James Bond movie on a giant screen. We screwed up our courage with the motivation of making a lasting memory—of one final chance to, well, do something stupid.
We took a collective breath, slipped off our dresses, and ran. As our small herd galloped through the wet grass toward the projector, the crowd began to murmur, “What are they doing?” and “Wait, are they . . . ?” among claps, cheers, and laughter. Ahead of the pack, I pumped a fist triumphantly, breathless from cold and adrenaline, and nearly fell. The scratch of gravel and sympathetic noises from the crowd indicated that one girl had stumbled on an asphalt path, but I feared slowing down to look. I pulled on my dress clumsily in a patch of trees—and the moment I stepped into the street, I was greeted by a squad car. (My partners in crime escaped.)
“Don’t move,” the officer said. “Do you know what I stopped you for?”
Yes. When one last chance to experience the freedom of college life presented itself, I took it.
In the Office of the Judicial Administrator the next day I played nervously with the honors cord I had just picked up, wondering if I would ever get to wear it. Luckily, I was allowed to graduate; my sentence consisted of a “reflective essay” on my transgression.
Now, what requires more courage than my act of public lewdness—as my offense was deemed—is embracing the future. Fully clothed.
—Molly O’Toole ’09